White House Seeks Input on Innovation Strategies

A request for input was published on July 29, and is available here. The summary states:

The Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Economic Council request public comments to provide input into an upcoming update of the Strategy for American Innovation, which helps to guide the Administration’s efforts to promote lasting economic growth and competitiveness through policies that support transformative American innovation in products, processes, and services and spur new fundamental discoveries that in the long run lead to growing economic prosperity and rising living standards. These efforts include policies to promote critical components of the American innovation ecosystem, including scientific research and development (R&D), technical workforce, entrepreneurship, technology commercialization, advanced manufacturing, and others. The strategy also provides an important framework to channel these Federal investments in innovation capacity towards innovative activity for specific national priorities. The public input provided through this notice will inform the deliberations of the National Economic Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which are together responsible for publishing an updated Strategy for American Innovation.

47 thoughts on “White House Seeks Input on Innovation Strategies”

The biggest problem I see in the US patent system, is big companies or people dream up stuff then write extremely broad claims, completely outside their area of expertise, then sit on it and do nothing. This is seriously impeding true innovation and progress, rather than helping it.

The granting process should require inventors show actual prototype, or some tests done to show its viability. I would further suggest introducing a peer review process into this.

Ned, the judges with science and patent law backgrounds write better opinions. Moreover, I don’t know that it is true that the SCOTUS has reversed Rader and Rich more than other judges. Rader did not have a science background, by the way.

Are you saying, then, that Rich was a bad choice for the Federal Circuit? The man who essentially wrote the 1952 patent act and is admired above all other jurist in patent law by most patent attorneys. This is the man you are criticizing?

Silly me. I thought this was a serious conversation. I assume you were making a joke.

Ned: one thing we could do would be to protect American inventive activity over activity taking place elsewhere.

How about massive increases in grants to public science institutions and researchers, focused on solutions to the major inevitable crises we are facing: decaying infrastructure, rising sea levels, fossil fuel depletion, and water shortages.

Of course, none of that is nearly important as being able to pre-rent your streaming video from you car by voice command, miles before you reach your hotel room. Priorities, people!

I hear worst case scenario is double the normal sea level rise by 2100. It isn’t exactly something that is going to make the news unless you live on an island or have beachfront property.

“fossil fuels r the runnings out!”

Likewise, there’s enough fossil fuels to last us till like 2100 ez. Every decade we make new techs that unlock the ability to get even more out of the ground. Peak oil = overblown.

To be honest I really wish that those problems were worse than they are. As to water shortages, meh there isn’t much “research” can do on that front I doubt. It’s more about implementing already known water conservation techniques and not overburdening the local water ecosystem as far as I’ve heard.

Malcolm, not bad. Also providing tax credits for R&D conducted in the United States.

But also, I think, allowing American inventors to be on a first invent system vis-à-vis the rest of the world is also a good idea. Wasn’t that long ago that §104 only allowed proof of inventive activity in the United States.

Using the Internet/computers to sell stuff to people, or shove an ad in their face, or collect information from them, or do stuff that people have been forever with a pencil and paper?

I suppose that sort of thing seemed kind of “innovative” to some people a bit more than a quarter century ago.

But let’s take that recycled g arb ge out of the equation and ask ourselves: how much “innovation” is actually going on, as opposed to b ot tom-f eed ing grifters simply piling into the casino and demanding that the patent system “back them up” on their bets?

We need a National Intellectual Property Trust which allows Inventors to submit their IP to the Trust, and receive licensing with the Trust over a FRAND type enforcement model. Government of course takes a management fee for operating the Trust.

Gotta love this idea. Let’s set up a suggestion box at every corner where people can submit their suggestions and then receive automatic royalties, no questions asked about novelty or whether the invention is used.

1. Eradicate the public school system and give responsibility to for-profit companies because … free market!
2. Increase tuition and increase the debts of students.
3. Lower taxes on the rich because Most Important People Ever.
4. Get rid of the minimum wage so rich people can get richer.
5. Destroy social safety net so private companies to manage poverty — they’re great at that!
6. Invade a country on the other side of the world and flush trillions of dollars down the drain because Freedom.
7. Promote traditional religion because Source of All Knowledge.

George Carlton Deutsch III was a press officer of the United States space agency NASA. He was appointed to the position by George W. Bush, having previously worked in the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign “War Room” and on the 55th Presidential Inaugural Committee

Deutsch gained notoriety in late 2005 and early 2006, when it was reported that he had instructed a NASA website designer to add the word “theory” after every occurrence of the phrase Big Bang. In his memo to the website designer, Mr. Deutsch wrote that the Big Bang is “not proven fact; it is opinion… It is not NASA’s place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator… This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue.” The memo also noted that the AP Stylebook calls for the usage of the phrase “Big Bang theory”.

Prior to the 2004 Bush/Cheney presidential campaign, Deutsch had been a student at Texas A&M University. His NASA résumé falsely asserted that he had a B.A. degree in journalism, but in February 2006 a blogger at The Scientific Activist discovered that he had never graduated.

Ned: I think the target rather is public sector unions who advocate their own private interests at the expense of the public interest.

I forgot about “public-sector unions”! Thanks, Ned. Yes, the Republicans would like to get rid of all of them, too, of course, in addition to any other worker unions. Their most important consituents (rich people) would love to pay workers less and spend less money trying to keep them safe. All that wages and safety nonsense just interferes with Progress, you know.

In fact, Ned, the Republican focus on those bad ol’ unions is just an obvious sideshow (albeit one with other benefits for Republicans). Surely you realize that? I mean, you do understand that there is a lot of money to be made by private (Republican) businesses to pick up the slack when the public school system is destroyed. Did you actually think there was some other reason to focus on destroying the public system rather than fixing it (which would require money)? C’mon.

Unions might be justifiable in a free market because of the disparity in bargaining power. Furthermore, management can I give the union an unlimited carte blanche because of the did so they go out of business.

But, in a non-free-market such as the public sector, the union bargains against the people who must pay through higher taxes. Why is this even remotely justifiable?

MM…I bet you actually believed you could keep your doctor if you liked him/her. Frankly, I have long harbored the belief you did not buy in to political sound bites/slogans because you seemed much too ornery to be manipulated. It appears I may have been mistaken.

Malcolm, regarding the trade-off between lower tax rates and higher taxes, this is a proven fact. The Laffer curve is real.

When Obama was advocating higher capital gains taxes, his opponents pointed out that when the tax rate was lowered the total taxes received increased dramatically. Obama then said, is not about taxes, but about fairness.

The first comment should be self-evident. No administration that leaves the United States Patent Office leaderless, without even a nomination attempt for nearly two years, can taken seriously on this important subject. [Even though this administrations initially appointed PTO director was a great improvement over unqualified Director appointments of the prior administration.]